eastern, author william julius wilson. students do not fully understand the complex forces that have increased, for example, their economic woes, economic securities create conditions that are breeding grounds for racial and ethnic tension. >> next week at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> joining us now is paul waldman, a blogger for the washington post. and senior writer at the american prospect. he is here to talk about the democratic party's legislative agenda. thank you for joining us today. we will start with the health care bill. we have the republicans trying to put together a plan in the senate. assuming a plan comes together and ultimately passes, what

should the democrats do? guest: if it actually passes, and that is an eventuality most people are not really prepared for. we have been talking about the results. it would depend on exactly how it is structured, how soon the provisions of the bill would take effect. as we have discovered in the details have come out, a lot of results could be pretty catastrophic for a lot of people. i think what you would see happening is that if it were actually passed, that would be the centerpiece of democratic organizing looking ahead to 2018 highlighting what is going on and use the bill as a way to rile up their base. the thing about midterm elections is that they are always a function of which side is angrier. when there is a big election

might we saw in 2014 or 2010, or 2006 it is almost because the opposition party got really mad at the president. they got their voters out. only about one third of the public will vote in a midterm election. if you can get your voters excited and get to the polls, you will win. if the other side is dispirited, that increases your chances. from a political standpoint, if it were to actually pass, that would make the democratic base extremely angry and organized and motivated. that may happen even if it does not pass. we have seen an extraordinary amount of new organization, new activity among liberals this year. more so than i can recall ever seeing before. you have groups like indivisible which a set of thousands of chapters in every single congressional district in the country. local democratic party organizations have been antedated with volunteers.

people on the left are more motivated than they have been in a long time. it is always a challenge to keep that energy up and going. if this bill fails, which is looking like chances are better than 50% it will fail but we still don't know, that it will still be something that motivates democrats because it is something that they are going to be mad about, even if it does not succeed. work withdemocrats republicans at this point? mitch mcconnell basically made a ofspect has appealing pulling at his own eyelashes. sayt: it was interesting to -- they hear him say that service was of the. we willthe president have to work for the democrats and how horrible that would be. it is certainly possible.

there are very specific things you can do to improve the affordable care act, especially with the exchanges. we talked a lot about what is going on for the exchanges, even though that is a relatively small portion of republicans get their health care from it. posted from their employer. a lot of people are on dedicated -- medicaid. the few million people who get their insurance on the individual market and through the exchanges, that is where a lot of the conversation is centered. there are specific things that are not necessarily partisan you can do to shore up those exchanges and stabilize them. fails, if this bill democrats will probably say to republicans, look, let's take the big medicaid cuts off the table, let's take the tax cuts off the table. why do we just do a few specific things to shore up exchanges and make them work better? democrats want to do it because they want to make sure people have stable health care.

republicans have incentive because they will get blamed for whatever problems there are. that is something i think there is no reason why democrats and republicans could not work together to just do those kind to sort ofsic things keep happening stable for as long as possible. host: we are talking with the american prospect's paul waldman about the democratic decision agenda. democrats can call (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. and independents, (202) 748-8002 . care, issue of health it a matter of the democrats have done a poor job in messaging ever since this bill was passed? there are polls that show that people dislike obamacare but they actually like the affordable care act, aspects of it. you write the problem for democrats is that because health

care is a next-door nearly complex area of policy -- an extraordinarily complex area of policy, did makes it easy to make people fearful of what reform might bring or convince them completely made of things are in fact true because it is also confusing. our recent history makes that unfortunate state of affairs clear. back in 1994, the wall street journal published an article called "many don't realize is the clinton plan they like," which describes the only 37% of respondents said they favor the clinton plan, but when various plans were discussed without saying to support switch, 76% found the clinton plan appealing." what are the democrats doing wrong here? guest: this has always been a challenge. health care and health insurance are extremely collocated. if you look at the affordable care act, there was a decision made about the experience of the clinton administration.

the obama administration said we are not going to try to completely remake the system. what they decided was they would take this extremely collocated health-care system -- complicated health care system and later on another player of layer ony -- player -- another layer of complexity. they said we have to get them on board, co-opt them, and we will change things, add things, but not change the fundamental structure of american health care. you wind up with something that is extremely complex. it was trying to solve many different. problems at once people don't have insurance. people who are paying too much. they were solving all these problems simultaneously, or attempting to. when you make that kind of effort at a big policy change,

that is hard to explain to people. it does not reduce itself to the bumper sticker. that left an opening for republicans to say things like they will be death panels. people are naturally free to change anyway. all of us have a bias towards preserving what we have got. when somebody comes along and says we will change all these things and it will be better, don't worry, you will naturally get defensive and say i'm not sure if it is better, even if i'm not completely happy with what i have. i am afraid of taking this risk. that kind of big policy changes always rubs up against that, and that is what republicans are facing now. there are problems with the system, but they are saying to blow upe will everything and give you something else that will be even better. people are saying hold on a second, i'm not so sure what you are proposing to give me his better. if you are serious about policy

and willing to take on the big challenges with complex systems like health care, it will be a difficult task of persuasion to get people to understand what it is you were doing and find it appealing enough they will support it. host: laura on the republican line from new york. caller: hi. i agree with one thing paul is saying. change is difficult. but i don't agree with him thinking the democrats want to work with republicans went trump got up -- when president got elected we had senator schumer and the other black woman who said she doesn't want to work with bush but she meant trump. i think the democratic senators do not want to work with republicans unless the democratics get it their way. i think we have to look more towards making america a one

body substance again instead of division. msnbc way, id what cnn, and fox. i watched them all. my views are my own. host:. let's get paula chance to respond guest: there is something to understand about partisanship. we sometimes treated about are you for the yankees are the red sox? there are important and deep philosophical differences in play here. when republican say we want to cut taxes on the wealthy everyone to cut back medicaid and restrict abortion rights, it is not a matter of democrats willing to work with them. these are real philosophical divides. it is difficult for democrats is a google work with you on that because they goes against everything they believe. then there is the political matter. when barack obama was elected, we often times quote from mitch mcconnell when he said their

number one political task was to make obama a one term president. that is something he gets criticized for, but he was essentially right. he understood and democrats understand now if he could deny obama any kind of political victories, that would make it more likely that republicans would win. the republican party said if we just deny everything, you won't get as many legislative accomplishments. it will look to the country like everyone is arguing. that will help us win, and they were right. they took back the house in 2010 and the senate in 2014. democrats look at that experience now and they say we

have the deep philosophical differences, let things on the republican agenda we just really disagree with, and also we are not going to compromise just for compromising sake. if it is something we don't agree with to begin with and against the republicans of victory that ends up helping them win in the next election, what does that do for us? host: the answer to the question, it's always red sox. jeff is from wisconsin on the independent line. caller: good morning, c-span. i will call b.s. on you right now. the only thing is identity lose.cs, i win, they comment way back when on if you like the plan, you can keep your plan issue. you are quoted saying it is not a scandal. it is the piddling little scandal. it is your way, which is basically government control over everything.

thank you. we again are having a debate right now about how much government should be involved in health care. this is one of those deep philosophical divides. we can see it with the way we were talking about deep cuts to medicaid. medicaid has expanded dramatically in the last few years. in a covers about 74 million americans. republicans have wanted to scaling back. the current plan with you that dramatically. -- would do that dramatically. one of the things you see now if you look at what the administration and republicans in congress say about this, these are not really cuts to medicaid. we are cutting the rate of growth. it is not really a cut. what that suggests is they have realized the idea of cutting medicaid is something the public has a real problem with. what we found, to the republican's chagrin, most americans are ok with government health care.

they look at their parents and grandparents who are on medicare, people on medicaid, and they say that's a pretty good deal. republicans have this long-standing objection to it. they are in a position where they are trying to sell a policy that is based on that philosophy that says we should get government out of health care and basically what the market do its magic. but they are realizing people are not all that receptive to it. that is putting them in this awkward position. in polls they are getting 12%, 17% support. is a quandary for them, but they had their philosophical beliefs and they will keep trying to accomplish those things. i think that is one of the things make the most uncomfortable now. they are realizing book and a support government health care really has, even if they don't like it. host: looking more broadly into the midterm election season about the democrats messaging.

the washington post wrote the losses and last week's election in georgia produced predictable finger-pointing inside the democratic party. it also raised the new question that is troubled the party there it lostod wher e political ground. do the democrats have a message? guest: they have an agenda. we have to distinguish the two things. it gets phrase that democrats don't have an agenda and nothing to take to the public, but they have a whole agenda. if democrats took power tomorrow, they would have a long list of things they want to pass through congress. you can come up with any issue you can think of, there was a consensus democratic position on what should be done about it. the place for the fall short is they don't have a bumper sticker they can synopsis it.

this is something republicans have always been better at. they would give you very simple things. taxes,overnment, low traditional values. it is like a coat they can put on. it is easy to explain. you don't have to spend a lot of time making people understand it. democrats don't have that kind of neat summary of the things they believe. that is what they are lacking. it is not that they don't like policies. what they don't have is that kind of little summary. one pollster put it to me was they don't have the listerine test. listerine had this catchphrase, kill the germs that cause bad breath. it was once little sentence until the what the product is, what it does, the problem, what it's solving. democrats don't have that nice little summary. that is very helpful in politics if you can do that, but that is just a problem of marketing. not really a problem of substance. host: ralph from new york on the

democratic line. good morning. caller: i'm a uaw worker from upstate new york. we see it as a problem of the democratic party in your communication. you look at all the laws passed in our modern history from the national labor relations act to advanced worker rights, to advance women's right. the democratic party was in power. somehow president trump is better at communicating with these workers, working people in this country to vote against their economic interests. since recent history, 2010, four states in this country have gone right to work. by state legislatures that oppose workers rights, how were they able to communicate better with workers to get them to vote for them? maybe you know this. what was the union household

vote in the 2016 election that one for trump? that would be good to know and i thank you for your time. guest: the declining power of labor unions is an extraordinary problem for the democratic party. the caller is right. there are some of the few the store the strong labor presence. republicans come in and make what is essentially a cultural appeal. they say democrats are either alien, elitist, they are these coastal elites who are different from you. don't share your values. they train a conversation away from economics and labor rights. at the same time once they get into power, they do very specific practical things to undermine the power of labor unions. passing right to work laws and things like that. that makes it harder and harder for unions to organize. the thing labor unions have always done that is so powerful is they go to people and they

say, the things about your life in your working life, things that are going on in your workplace, those are political. it is not just that your boss is a jerk. it is a system that gives them power and takes it away from you. if you can join together with your fellow workers, you can take some of that back. that's a powerful thing and that is why labor unions are so threatening to conservatives and the republican party and why they work so hard to undermine their power. they know if they can take that off the field, they have a much better chance of appealing to those people on cultural issues and things like that. it has been for the most extraordinary medical success stories. how successful republicans have been at undermining unions both in the workplace and as a political force. host: we're talking with paul waldman, former senior fellow at media matters for america and alum of the annenberg public policy center. we are talking about the

democratic legislative agenda and message moving forward. there was a lot of discussion and house recently about leadership with folks openly wondering whether nancy pelosi should consider leaving the party. an excerpt from politico about nancy pelosi and house democrats. " the path for leadership elections is not theirs, says congressman villa of texas who wrote last week -- only an idiot would think democrats could win back the house with the lucy in charge. -- pelosi in charge. the decision to go or stay is her decision. that's an unacceptable outcome to some of her sharpest detractors, including congressman seth moulton, democratic massachusetts. as a leader isi

to accept more losses and 2018. 20 to start winning elections and start making changes to make sure we can do so now." do you agree? guest: i think there was not much to this criticism. haveryan and nancy pelosi bad approval ratings, but republicans are not wringing their hands over if they should get rid of paul ryan. it does not mean people are getting persuaded. it appeals to a part of their own base that hates nancy pelosi and has been told for years and foxs by rush limbaugh and she is a villain. there is not much evidence that an undecided voter is going to make up their mind based on who the house minority leader is. the thing about pelosi is she is without question -- i don't think any democrat would disagree she is one of the most gifted and accomplish

legislative leaders of the past century. i think one of the legitimate criticisms is that she has not cultivated a next iteration of leadership ready to take her place when she and the other democratic leaders who were also getting on in years are ready to move on. you don't have this kind of bullpen of people ready to come in. she certainly could've done more to cultivate. i also think the idea that you could put somebody else in that position of house minority leader who is from a blue-collar town in the midwest and suddenly that would mean a bunch of people who would been voting republican we now start voting democratic, i don't think there is any reason to believe that is true. host: stephen from gladstone, michigan on the independent line. i want to think c-span which everybody in america happy fourth of july. i think i know the answer to my question, but i would like to

republicans at the have tax reform and health care reconciliation right off the bat. they did not work with the democrats at all. they tried to go on reconciliation and say they will do this on our own. that is my question. thank you very much. guest: the simplest answer is they don't have the votes. in the senate republicans and 52 votes. -- have hit the two votes. -- have 52 votes. reconciliation bills have passed with 50 votes. the vice president can break the tie. otherwise they have to get to the filibuster which is 60 votes. they knew they were not going to get very many votes from the democratic side. they do not have a choice. their plan was the past the health care bill through reconciliation, and then they can do tax reform through the next year's reconciliation.

that is what they are still hoping to do on taxes and the do -- opened the door and health care. there are problems that come with that. you were only allowed to increase the deficit in a 10 year window. people might remember the bush tax cuts expired for the same reason. when they were passed in 2001 and 2003, they passed through reconciliation which means it can only last for 10 years. then there was a big fight over whether those taxes would expire. some were allowed to expire. republicans would like to covert that again. they want to make those tax cuts permanent. as it turns out they may be able to change the rules so instead of a 10-year window it could the 25 or 100-year window. there was a lot of parliamentary intricacies we may end up learning about. one thing we do know is that

mitch mcconnell is very creative when it comes to those kind of things. wen we get the tax reform, may have to educate ourselves and all the way on the reconciliation rule. host: karen from norman, oklahoma. caller: good morning. what going to ask this guy does he think is wrong with taking care of the military? these guys, they get up and go to work every day. they are working 16, 18 hours a day, seven days a week. they come back from war with their arms and legs shot off and mental disease. is reason people like trump because he is trying to work for working people. work youe able to should be contributing. we go to work every morning. we have had our two kids because a copy could afford it. we see the illegal across the street sitting on a front porch, talking on a free cell phone, getting $1000 a month in food

stamps and having six or seven kids that we have to pay for. host:. let's give politesse to respond guest: i wonder why the caller thought i had some problem taking care of people in the military. that says she has a bunch of assumptions about liberals must believe that i not actually based on anything real, just compunction. the fact of the matter is he immigrants illegal across the street getting $1000 a month in food stamps. nobody gets $1000 a month in food stamps. they are not worth that much. second, you cannot get them if you are not a citizen or undocumented. not true. is just there are a lot of different ways to look at supporting ordinary people. you can ask it entirely different set of questions. do you think we should have safety nets that support people

who are not able to feed their children? these are the questions we argue about but often it gets reduced to i don't like this people across the street. you are on with paul waldman. caller: i would like to know why we can't just have single-payer. it would cut the cost of ceo's across insurance and doctors and hospitals. it would save billions of dollars. the other thing i want to say is, if we are so far in debt, 20 trillion plus dollars, where they talking about tax cuts? that seems to be stupid. thank you. isst: on single-payer, rapidly becoming not quite the consensus but a majority opinion and the democratic party we should move to a single-payer health care system. one thing i want to warn people about is to be sure when you say single-payer you understand what you are talking about.

if you look at the rest of the world, every industrialized democracy has a universal health-care system that covers everyone much cheaply -- much more cheaply, but the british system of the socialized system. you have systems were people get highly regulated by private insurance. there are hybrid systems and supplemental insurance on top of it. when we say we like single-payer, we have to be clear about what it is we're talking about. the more socialized the system you are looking at, the more difficult it is the transition from where we are now to what that's going to be. i think that's going to be something that is an important debate democrats will be having over the next three years. by the time we get to 2020, i would happy surprise surprised if most candidate supports event of single-payer. there are a lot of different ways we can go when we say single-payer. we have to understand what it means for we say that. paul wal w --

morning, up sunday jack moline talks about his groups efforts to bring civility back into politics and political dialogue. discuss foreign service, five decades on the frontline of american diplomacy. and the trump policy -- administrations foreign-policy challenges. also, the new hbo film the words that build america. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern sunday morning. join the discussion. c-span, where history unfolds daily.

in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. next, a debate on the foreign policy of president trump with a former members of the george w. bush and obama administrations. after that, discussion on how the u.s. is perceived around the world. now, former bush national security council senior director shermandurand and wendy debate president trump foreign policy decisions and the america first agenda. the event is one hour and 10 minutes. , pleases and gentlemen welcome exit of councilmember robert lapin. [applause]